I thought I might share with you the cards that I made for Valentine's Day this year. I sent seven of these bad boys off with enough time to actually arrive on time to their recipients. Shocking!The original inspiration for this card was a challenge over at the Moxie Fab World. The challenge promoted a new special edition magazine consisting of 75 Creative Card Challenges. The deadline for submitting has long since past, but I was challenged and came up with this card set because of their inspiration.
I used an old Prima 6 x 6 paper pack to create the embellishments for this card. I had previously used some of the papers, so those scraps became my thin "flags".
I plucked out appropriate background pages to work as the canvas for my design. The challenge was to incorporate ten (count them, 10!) embellishments on any one card. At first I didn't think I was up to the challenge. But I stuck with it gathering together lots of small pieces/dies to see how they could fit together.
The floral swirls are from a Spellbinders die set, Floral Flourish. The "ironwork" pieces in the lower right corner come from Sizzlet's Architectural Accents dies. The oval tag was also a Sizzlet oval tag die. Keep in mind folks, these tools are OLD!
The great thing about the pressure cutting die systems that is a significant advantage against the machine die cutting like the Cricut is the ability to cut thick materials and/or fabric. The burlap accent was cut using the oval tag die (it has two cuts, one for the shadow and one for the oval tag). One run through the Tag-a-long and the burlap piece was cut. Some fraying occurred at the edges, but it only adds to the design here. The two tiny little hearts were cut using my Quickutz die from a letter set. I image these old tools have a discussion after this day of crafting. They'd been left to languish for years and suddenly put to good use. It's like I went shopping and bought something new!
The tulle flower developed from a whim I had in December to make tulle wreaths for some cards. Anni over at Handgathered inspired me, but with my illness and all I just never quite got around too it. So this lonely roll of tulle was begging to be put to use. After trolling around the internet and seeing a couple different methods, I sort of pieced these flowers together experimenting as I went. 
The first step was to cut approximately 7-8 inch length of the tulle creating a 6 x 8 inch piece. I folded the piece into thirds along the long edge and turning the folded tulle and again folding into thirds creating an almost square piece of folded tulle. I then sewed the center together with some thread and a needle.
After sewing the layers together, I sewed the button in place. The color is off in my pictures (I was working at night, drat that job providing a steady income!), but I used white tulle that I ultimately spritzed with some Glimmer Mist to make it more pink for my cards.
The last step was to trim around the edges using a random, wavy pattern and separating each layer. Finally, I twisted each layer of tulle in different directions to create dimension. This was a relatively random effort. It was tough on my inner perfectionist to let these flowers be asymetrical (it is required with the twisting of the tulle), messy and ultimately lacking in uniformity. However, they just didn't look pretty when I tried to even everything out. Arghh, inner perfectionist- go sit in the corner for timeout!
Nevertheless, I hope this brings a smile to folks' faces as they open up their card. These cards aren't traveling far, but they send fond wishes if not a bit of chocolate!
Happy Valentine's Day to you all.
Andie
